Things seem to be slowly unraveling for Sam Bankman-Fried. The former FTX CEO has had his membership and privileges suspended by the homeowners association at his luxury apartment complex.
Mr. Bankman-Fried, once worth a staggering $26 billion, was no longer allowed to buy anything from the complex, including groceries.
But since his apartment is owned by FTX, the now bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange he once headed, the homeowners association cannot legally kick him out.
The association will meet later in the day to decide what to do with the disgraced crypto wunderkind.
SBF is not yet in custody, but he has law enforcement officers shadowing him. There had been rumors earlier that the former FTX CEO had fled to an unspecified South American country. But a Reuters report citing his text messages indicated that he was still in the Bahamas.
The implosion of Bankman-Fried’s crypto empire has rendered the former multi-billionaire’s assets worthless. The Bloomberg Billionaires Index now values what was once the world’s third-largest crypto exchange at $1.
SBF also had a $500 million stake in the commission-free stock trading and investing platform Robinhood. But that has also been removed from his wealth calculation after reports emerged that the stake was held through Bankman-Fried’s crypto hedge fund.
Sam Bankman-Fried was once the toast of the crypto industry. He was revered as the quant-trading genius who got his teeth into crypto by spotting inefficiencies in BTC trading across different exchanges.
He was the man charged with convincing lawmakers, investors, and crypto enthusiasts about the revolutionary value of digital currencies. He sat with industry leaders and influential politicians and urged stiff-necked regulators to approve a crypto trading model that would have turned the derivatives market on its head.
However, after his crypto empire came crashing around him, Bankman-Fried became the subject of several criminal misconduct probes. Bahamian law enforcement authorities are reportedly working with the Bahamas Securities Commission to investigate whether the collapse of FTX was precipitated by criminal misconduct.
Last Saturday, SBF himself was interviewed by Bahamian financial regulators and officers from the Financial Crimes Investigation Branch.
The US Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Justice Department are also investigating Mr. Bankman-Fried for potential violations of securities rules.
And if that wasn’t enough, there were reports earlier in the week that the FBI was also considering extraditing SBF to the United States. to help with investigations into his role in the multi-billion dollar collapse of FTX.
